No other news story in 2009 can be bigger than the announcement today that the Swedish crown princess Victoria is getting engaged to entrepreneur Daniel Westling. When Expressen broke the story this morning, media and blogs have been buzzing about the rumours until the news were confirmed at about 2 PM. It was announced that the king and the government approve of the engagement, as is required by the constitution. The wedding will take place in spring of 2010 and will probably be an event of such magnitude that it will have a positive impact on the sales of tabloids and gossip magazines during the coming year or so.

But the really interesting aspect from a communications point of view is that while the website of the Royal Courtcrashed under the pressure today, the announcement was also broadcasted via YouTube.

The British Royal House has had an official YouTube channel for more than a year, but I’m still surprised that an institution as old and conservative as the royal family is able to dive in to social media in a way that most commercial enterprises are not even near yet. I’m sure it wasn’t announced on YouTube first, but either way: very well done. So, the king is on YouTube, why aren’t you?